ARM is claiming that its new multi-core A15 design will deliver 5 times the performance of current designs, at the same energy as current designs. (Source: ARM)

The Cortex A15 will join the lower-end Cortex A9 dual-core design to compete with upcoming netbook/smart phone offerings from Intel based on the Atom CPU. (Source: Intel via Engadget)

Coming soon to an Android phone near you

Smaller,
faster, more energy efficient -- those are the goals of ARM's
Cortex A15 multi-core CPU. The processor architectures
packs speeds of up to 2.5 GHz and up to four discrete cores, each
with the own integer processing unit, floating point processing unit,
and L1 cache. There will be 1, 2, 4, and 8 core
variants.

Today the CPU market stands sharply differentiated.
In one corner stands ARM king of the smartphones and energy-efficient
proponent of reduced-instruction set computing (RISC). From
iPhones to Androids, most smartphones on the market comes packed with
an ARM processor; some come packed with 2 or more.

On the
other side of the fence is Intel, whose x86 architecture is the
champion of complex instruction set computing (CISC), supporting
the market's
most powerful CPU designs.

Both groups are eager to take
over the other's turf. With the launch of the Cortex A15,
codenamed "Eagle", ARM is not only targeting high power
smartphones, but netbooks
and potentially notebooks as well. And with Intel's
impending release of an under-1
watt Atom CPU, ARM's rival looks to invade the smartphone
market.

On paper ARM's new multi-core processor has some
considerable advantages over Intel's Atom. Atom can only
execute two instructions at a time, while Cortex A15 can execute
three. Atom currently can only reach 2.13 GHz (the Intel Atom
Z560) -- ARM's Cortex A15 CPU is capable of higher speeds.

The
Cortex A15 is also extremely aggressive when it comes to turning off
parts of it that are unused. ARM claims that nearly every part
of the CPU is voltage-gated. However, it takes only 10 µs for
the component to go from powered-down to standby, and from standby to
active. Combined, that means that the system should have
continue to deliver on ARM's legacy of being more energy efficient
that x86 architectures, while not sacrificing performance.

One
advantage Intel may have,
though, is with memory. While the Cortex A15 adds extended
memory support, for up to 1 TB of total memory, ARM has not announced
what kind of
memory the chip will support. Intel has already announced that
its upcoming refresh of the Atom CPU will be able to make use of the
more efficient DDR3, by contrast.

Like the Atom, the new ARM
CPU uses advanced technologies like hardware error checking. It
also brings support for virtualization to the ARM lineup for the first
time. Support for fully cache coherent bus protocol -- which
allows multi-socket systems -- has also been added for the first
time.

The new architecture is slated for
production at the 32 nm and 28 nm nodes.

At the moment there's
a couple key manufacturers of ARM smartphone processors. One is
Samsung, which makes the CPU
core of Apple's proprietary A4 chip found in the most recent
iterations of the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch. Samsung also make the
CPU for the best-selling
Galaxy S smartphones. Another important player is
Texas Instruments who makes the processors found in the Droid
X/Droid
2 smartphones.

The announcement of the Cortex A15
licensing availability comes just as these players prepare
their first
dual-core Cortex A9 designs are preparing to hit the
market. Leading the charge will be Samsung 1 GHz Orion CPU and
Texas Instruments OMAP4430 (up to 1 GHz)/OMAP4440 (1+ GHz).
Both processors are slated for Q4 2010 launch and Q1 2011

The
only player in the smartphone industry who isn't directly
licensing the ARM architecture is Qualcomm which uses the ARM's
instruction sets (RISC) in its designs, but does not use the
architecture itself. Qualcomm's ARM-like CPU designs are
commonly used in HTC's Android smartphones like the HTC EVO 4G.
Qualcomm has already announced that its 1.2
GHz dual-core MSM8260/MSM8660 will be available this quarter
and 1.5 GHz QSD8272/QSD8672 variants will be available in Q4
2010.

Expect new designs from TI and Samsung based on the
Cortex A15 core to be announced shortly, with mass availability
likely set for sometime next year. And expect Qualcomm to
officially unveil its own upcoming quad-core smartphone
ARM-instruction set designs soon as well.

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